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More Police in Canada Bringing Fentanyl Manslaughter Charges

Shawn Kelly Jr., 23, died of a fentanyl overdose in April in Innisfil, Ontario, Canada, about an hour's drive north of Toronto. South Simcoe police began investigating immediately. Within a few days they arrested one man for trafficking. A few weeks later they arrested another for the same offence, reports the Vancouver Sun.

In late August they lowered the boom, laying manslaughter charges against the pair for Kelly's death. Kelly's mother Denise Lane recalls feeling happy when she learned of the development.

"My son didn't deserve to die, he didn't deserve for these people to sell him this s–t and for me to wake up in the morning to find him dead," says Lane. "Shawny may have held a gun to his own head, but the people that sold it to him are the ones that pulled the trigger."

Several forces and prosecutors across Canada are now laying manslaughter charges against those who allegedly supplied fentanyl to people who overdosed and died. For South Simcoe police, laying such charges is partly about sending a message to dealers of the powerful opioid.

"We're trying to show that when we have the information, we're going to pursue the people providing this because it's causing death in our communities," says Det. Sgt. Brad Reynolds, who oversaw the investigation into Kelly's death.

Scanner audio captured an officer’s account of what happened at the scene, CWBChicago reports: “Ten people surrounded me, indicating that they had firearms. And one person pulled him away from me, holding his waist, indicating that he would use a firearm against me.”

There were so many police officers, sheriff’s deputies and Highway Patrol troopers that the court appearance had to be moved out of Justice Court to Judge John Larson’s Courtroom Number Three on the third floor of the Missoula County Courthouse.

The vehicle pursuit ended in the town of Kittitas where Deputy Thompson was backed up by Officer Benito Chavez. The suspect exited the vehicle and exchanged shots with the two law enforcement officers.

Sarah Wilson and her boyfriend were arrested during a stop in Chesapeake after officers allegedly found drugs in the 1996 Lexus the couple were driving. Police said they handcuffed Wilson and, while attempting to apprehend her boyfriend, 27-year-old Holden Medlin, he became combative and ran away from the scene.